Banana Baked Oatmeal with Chocolate Chips

Since the girls and I like baked oatmeal so much, and it's an easy breakfast to make on mornings when they both have to get ready for school, I wanted to come up with another version. I thought I would try my hand at baked oatmeal with banana, and what goes better with banana than chocolate? Michael said it tasted too good to be called breakfast, but then he tried to eat the rest of my serving. From now on, whenever I have a ripe banana that needs to be eaten, I'm going to make this baked oatmeal. And I should probably wait until I have two ripe bananas, so there will be enough oatmeal for Michael to have some, too.

Banana Baked Oatmeal with Chocolate Chips
serves 2 adults, or 1 adult and 2 small children

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup Bob's Red Mill gluten-free rolled oats
• 1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 medium banana). It's important to get exactly 1/2 cup. If the banana is a bit too small, make up the difference with almond milk. And don't try to use more than 1/2 cup, otherwise the oatmeal will be gooey.
  
• 2 Tbsp. almond milk
  
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. canola oil
• 3 Tbsp. almond milk
• 1/2 Tbsp. flax seed meal. I use Bob's Red Mill brand.
  
• dash of sea salt
• 1/8 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract. Use Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another vanilla extract that does not have corn syrup and is preferably alcohol-free, since the alcohol could be derived from corn. Recently I have been using Rodelle Vanilla Flavor alcohol free all natural extract, which I found at Stop and Shop.
• 2 Tbsp. dairy-free semi-sweet chocolate chips. The two kinds I use that do not contain milk fat are Trader Joe's semi-sweet chocolate chips and Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Instructions:

The night before, mash the banana using a fork or food chopper. Measure out 1/2 cup of banana. If you don't have quite enough to fill the measuring cup, make up the difference with a bit of almond milk. Pour the banana into a small bowl. Add the oats, 2 Tbsp. almond milk, and lemon juice. Stir, cover with a plate or plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator overnight.

In the morning preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Remove the bowl from the refrigerator and stir in the brown sugar, canola oil, 3 Tbsp. almond milk, flax seed meal, sea salt, baking soda, cream of tartar, and vanilla extract. Then stir in the chocolate chips. Pour a little more than 1/2 cup of the oat mixture into each of two 7-ounce ramekins. Place the ramekins in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the ramekins from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes before serving.